Sunday, 20 December 2015

5 Reasons Why Every Day Could Be Christmas

Christmas is an amazing time. Soldiers hell bent on killing
each other have even set up truces, temporarily halt their mutual slaughter,
and play football, as in WW1. The shops enter heaven on earth
as their till takings explode. People talk to those they don’t usually get on
with (sometimes including family), and everywhere the spirit of human bonhomie
abounds. It’s a cypher for a mini world peace of sorts but here are 5 reasons
it could happen 365 days a year.

First give yourself permission

Sure there is the religious celebration of the birth of
Christ and its cry for peace on earth in the case of Christmas, and that’s an
important stating point. However, the key thing is, some cause, some idea gives
us permission to be peaceful and we act on that admonition. Why can’t we give
ourselves this admonition and permission every day. It works over Christmas and
many religious festivals so it can be done. The birth of
Christ is the “excuse” but we could find any number of “excuses” for giving
ourselves permission to be jolly and convivial.

Want for it to work

The second reason we could have Christmas every day is we
all want it to work. We all want to have a good time because we are tired of
the daily conflicts, game playing, and number one-ism that sadly characterises
a lot of interactions with those outside our tight inner circle. The truth is
we fight, abuse and control others because we fear that if we don’t we might
lose something – our privileges, advantages, special benefits of one sort or
another. Of course the cycle of conflict created makes it more likely that
further conflict will ensue. Deep down everyone just wants a happy, stress free
life we just don’t know how to get it because we haven’t given ourselves
permission to have one. (That’s not a life free of challenge by the way,
happiness is probably impossible without challenges to motivate us.)

Take responsibility

Thirdly even the most outrageous glums we know grudgingly
get into the spirit of Christmas and start to own it for themselves. If at
first they give presents because they’re expected to, after a few days of
buying them, experience shows that people start to enjoy giving and the
tendency becomes one of over giving if anything. So it can be done, and crucially
it gets done because each individual takes responsibility for dropping their
pebble of largesse into the big ocean and the ripples travel far (and not just
to shopkeepers). Actually no one is making you jolly, you are becoming jolly by
being jolly and it’s amplified by the jolliness of others.

Guess What? It just doesn't matter

My fourth and favourite reason for saying that Xmas can be
an all year thing is that we suddenly subliminally get the notion that whatever
is the cause of the conflict ….it doesn’t matter. Not that our conflicts are
imagined, we’re not making them up, but we rise above them, behave convivially
and soon discover another perspective which enables us to ride over our differences.
Why can’t we do that every day?

The downside leads to the upside

The fifth reason Xmas could still be on by say mid-May,
early September or whenever is that all the downsides associated with it, debt,
alcohol abuse, family and relationship bust ups, even suicide are like the
dross that rises to the top when ore is smelted to leave the pure metal running
free. We soon learn that it’s the thought not the pound value of the gift that
gives the lift, we learn that we don’t need to anaesthetise ourselves with
alcohol to become social, we soon realise that falsely love bombing people with
prezzies is trumped by an actual relationship based on mutual respect. Under
those circumstances, we spend money meaningfully, make the involvement of
alcohol the effect of a good relationship not its phoney cause, and that
authentic closeness lifts people out of dire lonely misery.

So yes for all these reasons Xmas could run year round in
spirit, and everyone would be winners. It is a state of mind kicked off by the
religious festival! Do you believe it? Share your view here in the comments.

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